French words from the toolbox, buried in a letter grid

Six French words from the shed and the toolbox are hidden here, with pictures — a hammer, a ladder, a bolt, a plunger — showing which ones to chase. Your child scans the rows and the columns and rings each word as it surfaces. MARTEAU and ÉCHELLE are the two most useful to come away actually knowing. The pictures name each one, so a child does not need the words in advance, and six of them make one comfortable sitting.

MÈTRERUBAN is printed as one unbroken run of letters, and it is really two words joined: MÈTRE, metre, and RUBAN, ribbon — a ribbon that measures. Split in half it becomes findable. It is also the longest answer on the sheet by some distance. Say so before your child starts, or that one gets circled last, after a great deal of fruitless scanning up and down.

Use it beside real jobs. A child who has just held the hammer while you fixed a shelf has somewhere to put MARTEAU. Say each word once after circling it, since French spelling and French sound sit further apart than a beginner expects, and the grid can only ever teach the written half. Print it whenever a job comes up; there is no score and no time limit.